Monday, May 23, 2016

A suggestion to use perceptions as evidence in conservation practice

Using perceptions as evidence to improve
conservation and environmental management

Nathan James Bennett

Conservation Biology, Volume 30, Issue 3, pages
582–592, June 2016

The
researcher start off saying that as part of a broader move toward adaptive
management and evidence-based conservation, the conservation community is
increasingly focusing on the monitoring and evaluation of management,
governance, ecological, and social considerations .Evidence is any information
that can be used to come to a conclusion and support a judgement or, in this
case, to make decisions that will improve conservation policies, actions, and
outcomes. Perceptions are one type of information that is often dismissed as
anecdotal by those arguing for evidence-based conservation.

In this paper the researcher points out the
contributions of research on perceptions of conservation to improve adaptive
and evidence-based conservation. The researcher goes on to add that studies of
the perceptions of local people can provide important insights into
observations, understandings and interpretations of the social impacts, and
ecological outcomes of conservation; the legitimacy of conservation governance;
and the social acceptability of environmental management. The researcher goes
on to add that perceptions of these factors contribute to positive or negative
local evaluations of conservation initiatives. He says it is positive
perceptions, not just objective scientific evidence of effectiveness that
ultimately ensure the support of local constituents thus enabling the long-term
success of conservation. The researcher signs off saying research on
perceptions can inform courses of action to improve conservation and governance
at scales ranging from individual initiatives to national and international
policies. Better incorporation of evidence from across the social and natural
sciences and integration of a plurality of methods into monitoring and
evaluation will provide a more complete picture on which to base conservation
decisions and environmental management.